apartment is the size of a postage stamp.”
“It’s big enough.”
“For you. There is no room for a child. No room for a husband.”
She gritted her teeth. “I did not agree to taking a husband. Not yet. I have conditions, but I won’t make my final decision until I’m certain that the situation is to my liking.”
“I’m not certain you want to challenge my authority. I am a well-respected billionaire, after all, and you are unemployed. The daughter of a businessman on the verge of being washed-up. If your mother hasn’t spent all of his payoff money by now, she’s certainly close to it. What could you possibly give a child that I can’t?”
“Love. Warmth. Human emotion?”
“I’m sure the court will be more impressed with my net worth.”
“I don’t think so. Everyone agrees that a child needs love above anything else.”
“And you feel you are more qualified to give a child parental love that I am?”
She shifted in her seat. “Yes. I do.”
“On what grounds? Prior to being unemployed you were a workaholic.”
“I was not.”
“Did you have a single friend who was not also a coworker?”
She didn’t even have to think about that. She knew the answer to the question. But whether or not they were from work Suki and Christine were real friends. Suki had brought cupcakes after Elle had been fired. Friendship.
Though the thought of cupcakes made her stomach turn right now.
“You’re a workaholic, too,” she said.
“I’m also a man and a billionaire. No one will judge me for the amount of time I spend working. It is irrelevant. Not so for you.”
“The point is, I am the child’s mother and I don’t think I’m going to have an issue retaining custody.”
“I disagree.”
“You will have to wait, Apollo,” she said, her voice infused with iron, with a strength she wasn’t sure she truly felt right now. “I’m not afraid of fighting you in court. To hear you tell it your mother was manipulated into a relationship with my father and now you want to do the same to me? How are you any better?”
“I’m not,” he said, his expression bleak, cold. But only for a moment. Then his walls went back up.
“Name your conditions clearly.”
“I want to stay in New York. I wish to have the child here. I wish to raise him here.”
“The child will be Greek. He should be exposed to his homeland.”
“Exposure is fine. But I want him raised here. I want to stay here. Because that leads me to my next requirement. I want my job back.”
“The new CEO has only been there for a month. If I let him go I will seem capricious.”
“There is a cost to everything. And that is the cost to having me without muss or fuss. Do you accept, or not?”
She wasn’t certain if she wanted him to say yes, or if she wanted him to refuse. She wasn’t sure what she wanted at all.
“I accept.”
A strange mixture of relief and terror washed through her. “Excellent.”
He pulled out his phone again. “Alethea,” he said. “I require some real estate. A penthouse, Manhattan. Something large, but secure. No rooftop balconies or anything like that. Or, if there are balconies, they need to be secure. Childproof.” He hung up.
“Is your assistant finding you a house?”
“No, agape,” he said, smiling a smile that was not friendly at all. “My assistant is going to find us a home. Now do you agree to marry me?”
Elle took a deep breath and met that coal-black gaze. “If I find the conditions are met to my satisfaction. And if I feel you won’t spend my whole life making me miserable. You said I was your revenge, Apollo. Until you see me as a woman—a whole woman, not your stepsister who you harbor rage against, not an instrument of vengeance to use against my father—you will not have me. Not in your life, not as your wife. That’s a promise.”
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